MOONDOG & FRIENDS was a small pop up of artists' work exploring rest, burnout, comfort and inspiration in the non-linear struggles of the everyday. MOONDOG AND FRIENDS is a show celebrating print and its legacies of proliferation and community. Printmaking history is the people's history.
In tandem with this project will be the print debut of the BURNOUT BOOK, an anthology of 30 artists' and writers' works that Laster has compiled examining labor, caretaking, living, grieving, missing, trying to make & trying to rest.
NOV 5th 2023
JC DECAUX KIOSK AT 6th & MARKET ST.
via CounterPulse Arts Kiosk
FEELING LANGUAGE
This show is all about comfort text: resilience in everyday words, writing and reading. Expression can also be wordless, the use of line and color as new vocabulary, pushing a thought out onto a surface, making marks and continuously trying to communicate with the world.
We tell stories to sustain ourselves and find each other. These messages embedded in art become an emotional telegram– a signal flare with a flame of memory trailing behind it. Feeling Language is about books, lists, slogans, language, gesture, touch and the trust given in sharing.
I’m really proud of this collection of 32 artists. 25 artists are from NIAD, 2 artists from Hospitality House’s Community Arts Program (CAP) : Gigot and Anthony Morrison. CAP is a completely free art studio in San Francisco that provides the space for low income and unhoused artists to make and sell work— as a former full time studio assistant at CAP, it’s an honor to continue collaborating with CAP.
Among the guest artists outside of these programs are: Mitsuko Brooks artist & archivist practicing in New York, interdisciplinary musician Abby Gregg currently working in Denver, and two artists who are both based in the Bay: designer & experimental printmaker Negash Asegde and Steph Kudisch an artist & queer reseacher. All of these artists embody yearning, text and transmission of ideas with their work.
FEELING LANGUAGE ARTISTS:
Saul Algeria
Negash Asegde*
Mireya Betances
Lisa Blevens
Mitsuko Brooks*
Jeremy Burleson
Heather Copus
Julio Del Rio
Luis Estrada
Carlos Fernandez
Gigot**
Abby Gregg*
Felicia Griffin
Shana Harper
Peter Harris
James Heartsill
Rebecca Jantzen
Samantha Kershnar
Steph Kudisch*
Sara Malpass
Karen May
Anthony Morrison**
Halisi Noel-Johnson
Michael Nuñez
Martha Padron
Dorian Reid
Serena Scott
Tre’von Silva
Louie Spagnola
Christian Vassell
Matthew Wilson
*non-NIAD artist
**artist from Hospitality House’s Community Arts Program
The Open Book sequence of exhibitions has been about trust, curiosity, tenderness and community. These are shows where there are heavy sketchbooks to pore over, delicate artist books, journals and diagrams to inspect- all reiterating tactile and intimate experiences. Every show has built upon the last, growing in gumption and switching to a different venue each time. The most recent exhibition, Open Book Show V, at Root Division had a roster of over 90 artists.
Past exhibitions have been at 1890 Bryant Studios, Pier 2 at Fort Mason, the Swell Gallery and the Diego Rivera Gallery. These openings have had many different events within them such as open mics, live music, live screen printing with aid from the SF Poster Syndicate and drawing sessions.
In an age of encouraged ignorance, fake news, xenophobia, the Open Book tells stories. Lives lived in pages: artists take up room with their everyday. The practice of keeping records may be associated with comfort but it is an act of survival. Books chronicle queerness, manifestos, persistence, magic, outrage & love.
invisible monument / secret memorial
JULY 31st, 2022.
This ephemeral show is about public memory & markers of the everyday, along with a tinge of grief, threading the notion of seemingly ordinary objects as a vessel for hidden commemoration.
Curated in my own backyard, a space I've spent a lot of time in: mulling over ideas, walking around during phone calls, painting & connecting with friends. I've gotten sunburnt & over heart ache & into new feelings in this feral garden. Clotheslines, houseplants, neighbor’s chatter, wandering cats, power tools in the distance, reggaeton on the radio, the sound of wind playing the Golden Gate bridge– this is where I’m inviting you.
ARTISTS FEATURED:
ANNA MACKENZIE
TONY RASONSKY
ART TITS
COURTNEY SENNISH
SARAH AINEB
CECILIA MIGNON
SASHA CRAVIS
CLAUDIA HUENCHULEO PAQUIEN
RYAN HARRISON
MANDY F. WALLACE
VICTOR SAUCEDO
MARTHA DAGHLIAN
GIRLONBUS
JULIO RODRIGUEZ
MANNY ROBERTSON
AJ SCHNETTLER
KELLEY O’LEARY
SERAPHINA PERKINS
BOJANA RANKOVIC
DANIELLE FREIMAN
TAN SIRINUMAS
OCEAN ESCALANTI
TXUTXO PEREZ
MADDIE PUTNAM
HALEY SUMMERFIELD
HARLEY HEALY
ZACH CLARK
STEPH KUDISCH
NEGASH ASEGDE
SAWYER ARKILIC
CHRISTINE LYON
ALISHYA SWENNING
ZACH SEARCY
MICHAEL DIAMOND
The BURNOUT BOOK is an anthology of 30 artists' and writers' works examining labor, activism, caretaking, living, grieving, missing, trying to make & trying to rest.
What happens when burnout burns out?
Kate Laster is interested in compiling records of the in-between and the margins of history as it happens. She began this project burnt out and tired, working full time, keeping as much grit and glimmer as could be held on to. & yet there is so much comfort and inspiration in the non-linear struggles of being alive and the everyday.
The original MOONDOG MAIL PILOT PROGRAM survey was sent out on March 16th 2022:
What’s the deal with burnout?
How are you?
Is memory a place?
Does memory grow?
Where does rest go?
What has been exhausting you?
What do you do for yourself?
What can you do for yourself?
Who do you carry with you?
What happens when burnout burns out?
When do we feel better?
Why? Just why.
The Burnout Book was risograph printed on an RZ 310 with maroon ink on a variant edition of papers, at Chute Studio in Oakland through CLEAR AS SCHMUTZ PRESS. It was publicly debuted via the MOONDOG & FRIENDS ART POP UP Newsstand takeover on NOV 5th 2023 at the JC DECAUX KIOSK on 6th & MARKET ST. in San Francisco via CounterPulse Arts Kiosk public programming.
STONES SPEAK 2019 performance documentation by Tianhu Kang tied to my MA thesis called GENTRIFICATION OF THE DEAD: How the Displacement of Cemeteries Paved the Way for Rethinking Monuments in San Francisco.
The term “absence” in this thesis refers to things that have been forcibly altered to be completely unrecognizable from their original intent. It takes an informed, critical eye to see what has been removed from a city’s building blocks as that public information is lacking. Despite the mythologized narrative of American expansion, there are no blank slates to build upon. Just as grave sites cannot be restored, their presence cannot be completely removed either. This subtle absence is most present in the site of Buena Vista Park, my key object.
STONES SPEAK is a performance that began at sundown, a time that is meaningful in Jewish rituals as nightfall signifies the beginning of each day. The transition of time is evident at dusk and dawn. For Jews, nightfall happens when the first three visible stars appear in the sky. Two participants handed out event scores as we gathered at the intersection of Buena Vista Ave East and Upper Terrace at Buena Vista Park. We started on the sidewalk, vocalizing as we walked along the perimeter of the park, with lush greenery on our right side and luxury homes and apartments on the left.
There were sounds of people in the park throughout the performance, sounds of birds quarreling, squirrels chirping, distant cars and airplanes creating a low, ambient hum. There was a police siren, a person listening to Reggaeton on their radio, and people walking their dogs as we chased the sunset, following the gutters lined with tombstones. The moving role of listener and the open air meant that participants could not hear the entirety of the sounds all at once, they had to move through the group in order to listen to everybody.
